[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 28 (Thursday, March 6, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E400-E401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE SCANDAL-A-DAY ADMINISTRATION

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 6, 1997

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, as someone who has been looking into the 
dealings of the Clinton administration related to campaign fundraising, 
possible breaches of national and economic security and other 
indiscretions, this past week has been very interesting. It would 
appear that there is no end to the sheer arrogance and deliberate 
skirting of the law under which this administration has operated. No 
law, and certainly no ethical standard, appear to forestall any efforts 
by this President to further his personal and political interests and 
those of his associates. From dealings with a foreign company and 
officials with close ties to the People's Republic of China that likely 
jeopardized important economic and national secrets, to encouraging 
meetings at the White House with DNC political fundraisers, major

[[Page E401]]

contributors, and even Federal regulators, this administration has 
shown a blatant disregard for ethical behavior and the public interest 
in a democracy.
  It would be impossible for me to call attention to all the various 
scandals unfolding around this administration in a reasonable amount of 
time. I for one am most concerned with questions pertaining to economic 
and other forms of espionage on behalf of foreign interests by a host 
of acknowledged friends and associates of the President. I believe 
these to be the most serious and most disturbing of the allegations 
that will ultimately be the focus of the media and the main source of 
the American people's disgust. But in the case of this administration, 
it more resembles the old saying ``Pick your poison,'' because there's 
no telling what may finally be most damaging.
  In October 1996 when I started asking questions about Clinton 
administration policy toward China and Vietnam, I was one of a few who 
found their associations and behavior suspect. Now, every major 
newspaper this week has had two and three front-page stories about 
various indiscretions under President Clinton and by President Clinton. 
And why is that? It's because there is an unbelievable wealth of 
information regarding wrongdoing out there. Yet, Attorney General Reno 
continues to deny the need for an independent counsel. It's hard to 
believe she's applying the same law we in Congress wrote just for 
situations like this where it is necessary to remove politics from an 
investigation. Clearly there is credible evidence of illegal activity 
and information that links principal figures, that is, President 
Clinton and Vice President Gore, to these actions.
  I urge you, Mr. Speaker, and everyone to take a look at two 
editorials from the New York Times and the Washington Post on March 5, 
1997, that outline another abuse at the hands of the Clinton 
administration. This one involving speeding up the citizenship process 
for potential political gain. As you can see from their tone, I'm not 
the only one who has grown tired of their insatiable political appetite 
and disrespect for honest government.
  The editorials follow:

                [From the Washington Post, Mar. 5, 1997]

                              Burned Again

       On subject after subject, this turns out to be a White 
     House that you believe at your peril. Six months ago, 
     Republicans were accusing it of trying to make political use 
     of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The charge was 
     that the White House had put the arm on the INS to speed up 
     and cut corners in the naturalization process, the theory 
     being that new citizens would more likely vote Democratic 
     than Republican, and therefore the more of them, the merrier.
       The administration responded that there was no way it would 
     do a thing like that, manipulate the citizenship process for 
     political gain, and folks believed it. We ourselves wrote 
     sympathetically that, while ``some congressional Republicans 
     suspect a Democratic plan to load up the voter rolls . . . 
     the administration replies that there are good and innocent 
     reasons for [the] increase.''
       So now, guess what? It turns out the White House was in 
     fact leaning on the INS to hasten the process, in part in 
     hopes of creating new Democratic voters. There are documents 
     that amply show as much. The attempt was described in a 
     lengthy account in this newspaper by reporter William 
     Branigin the other day. It was centered in the office of Vice 
     President Gore, where they do reinventing government 
     projects. But it wasn't just another reinvention. ``The 
     president is sick of this and wants action,'' Elaine Kamarck, 
     a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Gore wrote in an e-mail last 
     March, the ``this'' being that the INS wasn't moving people 
     along at the proper speed.
       The Republican charge is that, in speeding up the process, 
     the INS made citizens of some applicants with criminal 
     records who should have been barred. The Democratic defense--
     the current version--is that some of this may indeed have 
     occurred, but not because of political interference. 
     Rather, it was the result of simple bungling. You are told 
     now that you shouldn't take the political meddling in this 
     process--essentially a law enforcement process--seriously 
     not because it didn't happen but because it was 
     ineffectual. Now there's a comfort.
       The INS has long been an agency in disrepair. It had and 
     still has a huge naturalization backlog, partly the result of 
     increased applications after the grant of amnesty to certain 
     illegal aliens in the immigration act of 1986, partly now the 
     result as well of last year's welfare bill, which cuts off 
     benefits to immigrants who fail to naturalize. The agency was 
     already trying to cut the backlog, as well it should and if 
     ever there were a candidate for reinvention, it's the INS. So 
     you had a legitimate project until the folks with the hot 
     hands in the White House decided it should be a political 
     project as well, at which point it was compromised.
       Some of the worst ideas ginned up in the White House never 
     got anywhere, in part apparently because of stout INS 
     resistance. Nor is it yet clear how many people with 
     disqualifying records were made citizens, nor how much of 
     that was due to political pressure and how much to just plain 
     everyday incompetence. But in a way it doesn't matter. What 
     matters is that once again the political people couldn't keep 
     their distance from a process that should have been respected 
     and left alone on decency-in-government grounds, and then 
     they were untruthful about it. Who believes them and goes 
     bail for them next time?
                                  ____
                                  

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 5, 1997]

                       The Law According to Gore

       We salute Vice President Al Gore's decision to come forward 
     and answer questions about his role in the Democrats' 
     unrestrained fund-raising in 1996. But surely Mr. Gore and 
     President Clinton know that the situation is too messy for 
     the American public to accept Mr. Gore's relaxed reading of 
     the Federal law against soliciting money on Federal property.
       Mr. Gore argued that the law does not apply to his calls 
     from the White House since he used a credit card supplied by 
     the Democratic National Committee and was not soliciting 
     Federal employees. The Republicans and some legal scholars 
     seem to think the law actually means what it says, and that 
     Mr. Gore broke it. Whatever the final resolution, Mr. Gore's 
     forthright statement about his actions leaves no doubt that 
     Attorney General Janet Reno has the ``credible evidence'' of 
     possible law-breaking that she needs to appoint an 
     independent counsel.
       Of course, plenty more important evidence already exists, 
     and the need for a thorough airing will only grow in the days 
     ahead. Mr. Gore's undignified phone-athon, however demeaning 
     to him and his office, is not the weightiest matter to be 
     explored. What has to be determined is whether illegal 
     foreign contributions were funneled into the President's re-
     election effort and whether staff members at the White House 
     and the D.N.C. had knowledge or complicity in such an effort. 
     The political and legislative energies of this Administration 
     will continue to drain away until those questions are 
     answered.
       The extent to which Mr. Gore's admission dented his own 
     Presidential hopes cannot be known immediately. What is clear 
     is the utter tackiness and lack of restraint that 
     prevailed within the reelection councils at this White 
     House. Mr. Gore now bids to be remembered as the Vice 
     President who went a clear step beyond what previous Vice 
     Presidents and Presidents were willing to do. Typically, 
     the party's top officeholders appear at fund-raising 
     events and thank contributors in a general way, but they 
     do not do the arm-twisting themselves. It is demeaning and 
     potentially corrupting for a Vice President to ask 
     directly for money, especially from people with business 
     before the government.
       Senior business executives called by the Vice President 
     felt they were being shaken down, and they had a right to 
     think so. Such transgressions against propriety have become a 
     recurrent theme with this Administration. Whatever the final 
     adjudication of its conduct, this White House has time and 
     again blurred lines that other Administrations have drawn 
     between politics and government.
       After the disclosures that Democratic National Committee 
     officers and staff members were attending White House 
     meetings and receptions, using White House phone logs and 
     offering the Lincoln Bedroom and other perquisites to 
     potential donors, it should perhaps not be surprising that 
     Mr. Gore felt it was all right to sit in his office and call 
     contributors.
       Just once we would like to hear of someone within this 
     Administration's inner financial circle who had the strength, 
     self-discipline and taste to say no. Failing that, most 
     people would settle for an independent counsel to check the 
     Vice President's reading of the law and the legality of the 
     entire Democratic fund-raising operation.

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